Healthcare Matters

“It’s the economy, stupid” is a slight variation of the phrase “the economy, stupid” which James Carville coined as a campaign strategist of Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 run for the White House.

First, allow me to apologize for bringing up James Carville’s name and any related imagery I may have inadvertently conjured, but I digress. Carville’s original phrase was meant to keep Clinton’s campaign workers focused. In fact, it was just one of the three messages everyone on Clinton’s staff was told to keep top of mind. Interestingly, the other two messages were “change vs. more of the same” and ironically, “don’t forget health care.”

I was recently reading a two-part post written by Jason Busch over at SpendMatters entitled, “eProcurement Tools Are Not Half-Assed –Perhaps Their Users Are.” Clearly, Jason has a knack for catchy titles. In fact, if you abstract his sentiment, it conveys a message I deliver far too often to my own children –something like, “don’t blame anyone but yourself.”

In Jim Collins book, Good to Great, he talked about the “Myth of Technology Driven Change.” In just those few words, he completely and correctly debunked years of thinking that technology is the key to supply chain enablement. We were all sold the following idea: “Technology is the key; the right technology will enable enterprise-wide supply management, external supply chain visibility; and internal and external collaboration.” A.T. Kearny and other major consultancies were paid gazillions to articulate and re-articulate such wisdom and it led to, among other things, an eProcurement implementation failure rate throughout the first half of our last decade greater than 70%.

The prevailing wisdom these days correctly puts the spotlight on eProcurement processes (and what, if anything is going to change) and understanding that the right technologies are key process accelerators –not enablers.  Successful, long-term change management is bigger in its focus than project success. It tackles many of the long-term issues that, in the end, result in successful business transformation. “These include rethinking business processes, changing reporting structures, retraining and relocating procurement staff, and altering reward and incentive programs.” It also means rethinking and renegotiating relationships with your suppliers. And in this regard, it is important to be realistic about what areas of procurement can be re-engineered, at what time, in what sequence, and over what timeframe.

Things really don’t change that fast. That’s a myth too. It’s still about getting your arms around what your key processes are, what drives them and learning how to lay out for users in plain English how different technical characteristics of the new system will improve their daily lives. Keep the focus on the high-level and key business benefits.

—Tom Finn